Wireless communication has become the most used form of communication and system configuration. Wireless connections provide enormous flexibility to users. The most desirable feature of wireless communication is a person's ability to freely move around without restrictions resulting to physically connected devices. Another attractive feature of wireless connections is the ability to configure and arrange objects and components of a system without having to account for wired connections.
The most widely used form of wireless connection of a device is the telephone. Beginning with the cordless telephone and expanding to the cellular telephone and the smart phones, wireless communication is a way of life in our society. FIG. 1 is an external diagram of a conventional mobile cellular telephone device. The cellular telephone 100 includes antenna 110 for receiving and transmitting wireless signals to and from the cellular telephone network. Cellular telephone 100 also includes speaker 120 for playing audible signals received by cellular telephone 100 through the cellular telephone network. Display screen 130 is used to display caller identification information pertaining to incoming calls as well as telephone directory information and other cellular telephone configuration information. Cellular telephone 100 includes a variety of keys that the user presses to perform various functions or to enter phone numbers or alphanumeric data. Talk button 140 is used to answer a call or to initiate a call when the cellular telephone user places a call. Hold button 150 is used to hold an incoming call so that the cellular telephone user can take additional time to finish a task or leave a room in order to answer the call. End button 160 is used to hang up the cellular telephone. Keys 170 are used to enter numbers, star (*) functions, and pound sign (#) functions. Microphone 180 is used to capture words spoken by the cellular telephone user and transmit them to the other party.
Another aspect of wireless communication regarding the telephone devices is the ability to be “hands free’. An initial approach to implement a “hands free” telephone device was a telephone speaker or a set of earphones. However, a growing and popular alternative has been a wireless attachment that a user wears on his or her ear. The cellular telephone device communicates with the wireless attachment. The cellular telephone sends the received audio and transmits it to the wireless attachment through which the user hears. A primary technology that facilitates this communication is known as “Bluetooth technology”. Bluetooth is a wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances from fixed and mobile devices.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an example wireless communication system 200 in which WLAN transmissions and Bluetooth transmissions may coexist. The system 200 includes a WLAN access point 202 which may be coupled with a plurality of wireless stations 204, 205 for WLAN communications between the access point and each of the wireless stations 204 and 206. Each of the wireless stations 204 and 206 and the access point 202 may communicate according to one or more of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE) 802.11 Standards, for example, or any other desired WLAN protocol, as indicated by the WLAN communication signals 208 and, 210.
As shown in FIG. 2, the wireless station 206 is Bluetooth-enabled. In addition to receiving WLAN data packets from the access point 202 of the wireless local area network 200, the wireless station 206 also is capable of connecting to and communicating with a headset or any other suitable Bluetooth-enabled device 212 via a Bluetooth connection 214. In order to establish the Bluetooth connection 214, the wireless station 206 may utilize the Bluetooth inquiry and paging procedures.
Bluetooth devices operate in a mode known as “discovery mode”. Bluetooth devices, when in discoverable mode, are able to be seen (discovered) by other Bluetooth devices. If two phones connect, the phone that is trying to establish the initial connection, must be looking for a phone that is “discoverable” otherwise it will not see it. Once the connection is saved, discoverable mode is no longer necessary, as the phones already know each other. This is only necessary during an initial link.
If one Bluetooth-enabled device is in discovery mode and discovers another Bluetooth-enabled device nearby, it can query for its services and choose to establish a Bluetooth link, or a ‘pairing relationship’, with the other Bluetooth-enabled device. Establishing a Bluetooth link with another Bluetooth-enabled device is also known as pairing. FIG. 3 is a visual representation of Bluetooth wireless communication between two Bluetooth-enabled devices during service discovery.
Many of the services offered over Bluetooth can expose private data or allow the connecting party to control the Bluetooth device. For security reasons it is necessary to be able to recognize specific devices and thus enable control over which devices are allowed to connect to a given Bluetooth device. At the same time, it is useful for Bluetooth devices to be able to establish a connection without user intervention (for example, as soon as they are in range).
To address this issue, Bluetooth uses a process called bonding, and a bond is generated through a process called pairing. The pairing process is triggered either by a specific request from a user to generate a bond (for example, the user explicitly requests to “Add a Bluetooth device”), or it is triggered automatically when connecting to a service where (for the first time) the identity of a device is required for security purposes. These two cases are referred to as dedicated bonding and general bonding respectively.
Pairing often involves some level of user interaction; this user interaction is the basis for confirming the identity of the devices. Once pairing successfully completes, a bond will have been formed between the two devices, enabling those two devices to connect to each other in the future without requiring the pairing process in order to confirm the identity of the devices. When desired, the bonding relationship can later be removed by the user.
Although the use of the Bluetooth technology has made wireless communications more convenient, some limitations still remain for users of the Bluetooth technology. For example, pairing a Bluetooth device (e.g. Iphone) to a Bluetooth enabled output device, (eg. speaker), one is limited to the Bluetooth connection of the current device. If you want to switch (because of low battery, or simply out of boredom of selection), you must manually disconnect the device and pair it with a new device. This causes delays and a reconfigure of a Bluetooth connection to a new device.
Currently there are ways to send information from one smart device to another, for example switch from watching a feature on your TV to your tablet and have it automatically play and sync there. These are primarily just switching procedures based on user request as to which device should receive the data. We want to improve the intelligence here and provide a seamless collaboration with devices.